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Call For ApplicationsThe International Burke Institute (IBI) invites applications from early-career scholars for our inaugural Nonresident Research Fellowship Program. This initiative supports emerging researchers working at the intersection of sovereignty, global studies, and contemporary geopolitical transformation through targeted micro-grants that enable academic dissemination and professional development.
Mobilizing for Techno-Economic War, Part 5: Transforming STEM Research PolicyThe United States has been the world’s dominant techno-economic power for over 125 years. That has induced complacency. As the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has written, China is hungry and determined not only to displace American techno-economic leadership, but to also make America dependent on it.
RESEARCH
Contested Sovereignties: Indigenous disputes over plurinational resource governanceIndigenous organizations in the Andean countries of Ecuador and Bolivia originated novel proposals to pluralize sovereign arrangements through plurinational statehood. Reflecting diverse Indigenous groups’ relations with postcolonial states, these proposals created a unique basis for re-negotiating (sovereign) resource governance. Despite the constitutional endorsement of the plurinational state model however, the latest empirical evidence confirms growing state control over subsoil resources that excises Indigenous peoples from decision-making over resources. In this paper, we trace the emergence of novel agendas for sovereignty-multiplicity, showing how Indigenous agendas had anticipated the need to go beyond their rights over subsoil resources and autonomous territories. These agendas implied re-negotiating national sovereignty in light of the countries’ internal ethno-political and epistemic heterogeneity. Under nominally plurinational states however, resource governance outcomes perpetuate and normalise longstanding epistemic and power differentials between rights-bearing political subjects and Indigenous subjects. We highlight the colonial-modern bases of current sovereignty arrangements, identifying the presumptions and legal parameters that shape the dynamics between states, people and Indigenous people. Situating resource governance in relation to the concept of modernity/coloniality, we propose to (re)think sovereignty arrangements in the colonial present in light of internal heterogeneity.
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Vanuatu vs. Haiti: Sovereignty as a Commodity
29.06.2026 19:39
researchBarbados vs. Nauru: Sovereignty as a Сommodity
29.06.2026 19:37
researchMobilizing for Techno-Economic War, Part 5: Transforming STEM Research PolicyThe United States has been the world’s dominant techno-economic power for over 125 years. That has induced complacency. As the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has written, China is hungry and determined not only to displace American techno-economic leadership, but to also make America dependent on it.
How Western Sovereignty Occludes Indigenous Governance: the Guarani and Kaiowa Peoples in BrazilRecent international relations (IR) scholarship has developed a growing awareness of this discipline’s colonial roots, prompting a search for decolonising approaches. This article is about indigenous sovereignties and how they have been occluded in the currently globalised European system of states. The method employed is a case study of two of the most impoverished and brutalised Indigenous Peoples in Brazil: the Guarani and the Kaiowa. In an attempt to transit between the world of Westphalia and non-European worlds, it starts by engaging in a conversation with Guarani and Kaiowa knowledge. Then, through a long-term historical analysis, it examines the main colonial processes that caused the occlusion of Guarani and Kaiowa sovereignty. Finally, it provides a broader perspective on how the diffusion of the European model of sovereignty, confronted with Indigenous resistance, has led to the social exclusion of Indigenous Peoples worldwide.
Land sovereignty in depressed and contested agro-territories: The cases of Portugal and BrazilThis article offers an exploratory operationalisation of the concept of land sovereignty applied to land politics in 2 agro-territories from different countries and continents sharing a common language and deeply linked histories: Portugal and Brazil. These display a similar model of agricultural development, representing a contradiction between the promise of profit based on aggressive exploitation of the territory and the marginalised condition of its population. How this agricultural model took hold in each country and manifested the agrarian question differs according to key socio-historical factors, such as the role of each in the colonial history that links them. Today, however, these agro-territories face similar challenges: human rights abuses, environmental destruction, lack of sound territorial management and fair policies, coupled with the dilapidation of socio-economic infrastructures. This makes them especially vulnerable to climate change, unemployment and poverty, while also caught in a clash between development models: a hegemonic hyper-intensive production model and the peasant-based model that has been resisting the advances of the former. This double jeopardy has prompted us to speak of ‘depressed and contested agro-territories’. Our study shows how, in the case of Brazil, despite physical violence and threats to life, social movements are propelling land reform, linking it to the concept of the social function of land. In Portugal, in contrast, the country’s alignment with neoliberal development has civil society divided about how to contest land use. Our analysis indicates that in both cases: (i) today’s land politics are heavily biased towards a neoliberal, export-based, hyper-intensive agriculture controlled by large corporations, with weak legislation in place to defend both social and environmental rights; (ii) land reform based on land sovereignty and the social function of land is deemed crucial to assist agro-territories in regaining socio-ecological balance and to attain democratisation of land politics by regaining control over land, natural resources and local markets.
Sovereignty Under Siege: International Law, the Use of Force, and the Caracas Operation of 2026On January 3, 2026, United States special operations forces conducted Operation Absolute Resolve, seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Fort Tiuna in Caracas and transporting him to New York to face narco-terrorism charges. This paper examines the profound implications of this operation for international law, state sovereignty, and the normative foundations of the post-1945 international order. Drawing upon the UN Charter's prohibition on the use of force (Article 2(4)), the doctrine of head-of-state immunity, and the precedent established by the 1989 capture of Manuel Noriega, this analysis interrogates the legal justifications offered by the Trump administration and assesses their viability under established international legal frameworks. The paper argues that while existing mechanisms for accountability—including the International Criminal Court—have proven inadequate for addressing crimes by sitting heads of state, unilateral military action to enforce domestic criminal charges represents a dangerous precedent that threatens the foundational principles of sovereign equality. The accountability-sovereignty dilemma exposed by the Caracas operation demands innovative multilateral solutions rather than the reassertion of great power prerogatives. This analysis concludes with policy recommendations for strengthening international accountability mechanisms while preserving the legal architecture that has maintained relative stability since World War II.
Sovereignty vs. Intervention: Re-examining International Law after the 2026 United States Intervention in VenezuelaThis study critically examines the tension between state sovereignty and external intervention through the lens of the 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela, situating the event within the broader framework of contemporary international law. Traditionally, sovereignty has functioned as a foundational principle safeguarding territorial integrity and political independence, reinforced by the prohibition on the use of force under the United Nations Charter. However, evolving global challenges—including humanitarian crises, transnational threats, and contested governance—have increasingly tested the rigidity of this norm. The 2026 intervention presents a complex case in which legal justifications, including counter-narcotics operations, democratic restoration, and humanitarian considerations, intersect with geopolitical interests. This paper evaluates the legality of the intervention by analyzing its alignment with established exceptions such as self-defense and Security Council authorization, while also interrogating emerging doctrines like the Responsibility to Protect. It further explores the implications of unilateral action for the credibility and consistency of international law, highlighting concerns over selective enforcement and precedent-setting behavior by powerful states. Ultimately, the study argues that the incident underscores an urgent need to recalibrate international legal frameworks to better reconcile sovereignty with evolving norms of intervention, ensuring both the protection of state integrity and the promotion of global stability and human rights.
